Crime & Safety
Charges Dropped in Bar Stabbing
After victim is a court no-show, prosecutors decline to pursue the case.
A Joliet man charged with aggravated battery in an incident that turned into a is in the clear after prosecutors dropped the charges.
Daniel Jonathan “John” Dupree, 28, was charged with aggravated battery following the Feb. 26 fight at .
At the time, police blamed Dupree for instigating the incident, in which two Plainfield men were stabbed — one in the hand, one in the face.
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Dupree said he was also stabbed in the leg in the incident.
In May, prosecutors declined to pursue the case after one of the victims was a no-show in court.
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Sgt. Kevin McQuaid said the victim, who was stabbed in the hand, did not show up in court. The other man involved in the skirmish, who was stabbed in the face, made it clear from the start that he did not want to cooperate with police, McQuaid said.
"All three subjects knew each other," he said.
Dupree, who was arrested after he went to to seek treatment for his own stab wound, said he was not the aggressor in the fight.
“I got jumped,” he said. “I was protecting myself.”
According to Dupree, the physical fight started after a verbal altercation between himself and another bar patron.
“The guy was running his mouth,” Dupree said. “We were all drunk — that’s what it boiled down to.”
After the incident, Uptown co-owner Jason Gruben said all three men were banned from the business.
"It's very disconcerting," Gruben told Patch. "We've been open 24 years, we'll celebrate our 25th year this August, and we've never had a situation where there's been a stabbing or shooting."
Despite the charges being dropped, Dupree said he’s had a hard time finding work since his arrest.
“Since the incident, I’ve changed quite a few things [in my life],” he said. But employers get an unfavorable impression of him when the arrest shows up in Google searches.
“It makes me look like a lunatic,” he said.
McQuaid wasn’t surprised by the outcome of the case.
“Am I surprised? Not really,” he said. “[The victim] had told the State’s Attorney from the start that he wasn’t planning on cooperating.”
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